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How to keep score in tennis and padel: by hand, by watch, by remote
The same scene on every court: was that 30-30 or 40-30? Whose serve? What is the set score? There are five ways to keep score, from pen and paper to a smartwatch. This article looks at which one works when, where each of them falls down, and how the arguments actually get settled.
Why does the score get lost so often?
Tennis and padel scoring has three layers (points, games, sets) and the points follow the odd sequence 0-15-30-40. During a rally the brain tracks the ball, not the score; the moment the point ends, someone asks “what was it?”. In doubles, four people can remember four different scores — and each remembers the one that suits them. That is why the server calling the score out loud before every point became a rule; in practice, halfway through the second set nobody does.
1. Keeping it in your head
The most common method and the most fragile. It works between two players, in a short match, over a single set. In doubles and long matches the “was that 4-3 or 3-4?” moments are inevitable. One habit helps enormously: the server calls the score before every point, their own team first. When a dispute does break out, the rule is simple: go back to the last score both sides agreed on, count forward the points both sides remember, and replay the one you cannot agree on. It sounds obvious, but agreeing on that procedure before the match is what keeps a friendly game friendly — nobody has to “win” the argument.
2. Pen and paper, or a classic scoreboard
A sheet of paper at the side of the court, or the flip-card scoreboards clubs keep. The upside: no technology, no batteries. The downside: someone has to walk over after every point; they don’t, they remember three points later, and you are back to arguing. Flip-card boards are fine for games and sets (they change rarely) but impractical for points. For an umpire at a desk in a tournament they are still the most reliable option; for players scoring their own match, they are not. A halfway house that some clubs use: keep the flip board for games and sets, and let the server call the points. It cuts the walking down to once a game, but the points still live in someone’s memory.
3. A scoring app on your phone
Everyone has a phone and the screen is big. A good scoring app does three things: takes a point with one tap, knows the rules (golden point, tie-break, serving order) and calls the score out loud. Spoken announcements change the dynamic of the game: nobody looks at a screen, everyone hears “thirty – forty”, and everyone knows the same score. Connect a Bluetooth speaker and all four players hear it.
The problem is that you still have to touch the phone. Walking to the side of the court after every point stretches the gaps between rallies; putting it in your pocket hides the screen. There are two fixes: a watch and a remote. Both keep the phone where it is — showing and announcing the score — and move the one thing that has to happen after every point, the tap, to wherever the player already is.
4. Scoring from a smartwatch
For anyone with an Apple Watch or a Wear OS watch, this is the smoothest route. The phone sits at the side of the court showing and announcing the score; the player enters points from the wrist: the left of the screen is your team, the right the opponents, and the button underneath undoes a wrong entry. A serve-ball indicator on the wrist shows which side is serving, and you can read the score from the wrist too. Rally ends, one tap on the wrist, and four seconds later play goes on.
Things to know: the match runs on the phone; the watch is a remote — the phone has to be nearby with the app open. On the Apple side that means watchOS 10+ (Series 4 and later), on the Android side Wear OS 3+ (Galaxy Watch 4+, Pixel Watch). Pairing is enough both to enter points and to read the score; if the watch loses the phone, the point you enter is not processed, and the score on the wrist catches up as soon as the connection comes back.
5. A Bluetooth remote
For players without a watch, or who don’t want anything on their wrist, an inexpensive option: a small Bluetooth remote that connects to the phone like a keyboard (selfie remotes included). Clip it to your shorts or wear it as a wristband; one button is your point, the other is theirs, and holding a button undoes. With a single-button remote, a “one press us, two presses them” scheme works. The brand of the device does not matter; a good app “learns” which key the remote sends.
The remote’s strengths are simplicity and battery life (months); its weakness is that it shows nothing — the score lives on the phone and in the voice. The watch and the remote are not used at the same time; when both are connected, one is chosen so that points are not entered by accident. In doubles, one remote per team is the tidy arrangement: each pair enters its own points, and a mistaken press is undone by whoever made it.
Comparison
| Method | Entering points | Seeing the score | Ends the arguments? | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In your head | — | — | No | 0 |
| Paper / flip board | Walk to the side | At the side | Partly | Low |
| Phone app | Walk to the side | Big screen + voice | Yes | 0 |
| Smartwatch | From the wrist | Wrist + phone + voice | Yes | 0 if you own a watch |
| Bluetooth remote | A button | Phone + voice | Yes | Low |
Courtside setup: where does the phone go?
Hanging the phone on the net post or the wire fence with a hook gives the best result: screen in landscape, a little below eye level, visible to both teams. Keeping the screen awake is the app’s job; brightness should be at full. For spoken announcements the phone speaker is enough on a small court; outdoors and in the wind, a small Bluetooth speaker placed right under the phone does it. A tablet is better still — large digits can be read from metres away. One practical detail: set the phone up before the warm-up, not after the first point, so the serving order and the rules (golden point or advantage, third set or super tie-break) are agreed while everyone is still standing at the net. Clubs can also put the score on the court TV.
In the app
ScoreSay brings three of the methods above into one app: you enter points by tapping the screen, from an Apple Watch / Wear OS watch or from any Bluetooth remote; the score is shown in large digits and announced out loud in six languages, serving order and changes of ends are tracked, and an unfinished match picks up where it left off. The remote and the court speaker are in the shop; for the rules in detail, see the article on padel scoring.